In part because the time is short, I will completely eschew the conventional vocabulary and discourse that is currently employed for discussing Internet governance (IG) and go directly to the heart of the matter. I will be looking at governance of the Internet from a systemic geo-economic and geo-political viewpoint, and argue where I see the BRICS countries fit in, and what, in the circumstances, could be their best common way forward.
The Internet and its governance is still treated in a piece-meal fashion, which is perhaps understandable because it is so many things at the same time, and often so in many ways that were previously unimaginable. Further, changes in this area take place at a bewildering pace. We still see IG mostly, in parts, as a media issue, as relating to access to knowledge and its propertisiation, as a new means of commerce, as a security and privacy problem, in terms of interconnections issues like net neutrality, as concerning technical management and standards, and so on. It is undeniably all that, but in limiting ourselves to seeing the Internet and IG is this disparate fashion we might be missing the woods for the trees. This problem is specifically relevant to policy development with respect to the Internet, especially at the higher and at large-scale levels, which levels are indeed important given the trans- border and trans-sectoral nature of the Internet.
Lets try and raise our epistemic lens to this higher level and towards the large-scale, fitting it simultaneously into a geo-economic and geo-political frame. Internet today is basically a conflation of two large systems – which are no doubt connected. It is a system of global inter-connectedness, and, it also comprises extremely large and dynamic data systems. If we begin to examine from this vantage what the Internet implies for our societies, it is not difficult to see at least the large patterns. How the new global inter-connection system becomes the basis of our communication forms, which provides the skeleton of (the new and changing) social institutions, and how it presents a new logic for social organizing. In this logic being of a more 'organic' and self-adapting kind, and also minutely spread throughout, the Internet is becoming what can be considered as a global neural system. On the other hand, Internet based big data increasingly forms the main intelligence system of our societies, as the key basis of social action. Together, therefore, the Internet is emerging as a kind of spread-out global neural system as well as the 'brain' of our societies.
It is in such systemic geo-social terms – with its components of geo-economic and geo-political - that we must begin to see the Internet, especially if we are to usefully examine it from the viewpoint of how the current configurations of the global Internet should be responded to politically by the BRICS group, which today exists as the key counter-power to the increasingly problematic unipolar world.
In order to illustrate what we understand by a systemic geo-economic and geo-political issue, we can employ the example of the global system of providing evaluation standards for economic exchanges, the global financial and currency system. We now know more than ever before how improper management of this system has paved the way for an historic upending, whereby what should have been a support system for our economies has become a principal means of running them and extracting illegitimate value. For quite some time now, BRICS countries have been conscious of how just raising their manufacturing and services production is not enough for gaining global economic strength. They also need to adequately participate in the governance of the global financial system, from which they have been systematically excluded for obvious reason. And it is to this systemic issue or problem that at their last summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, the BRICS countries begun shaping a systemic response – by announcing the BRICS New Development Bank and a new reserve currency system. We now also hear about a possible BRICS credit rating system. Such responses come from the realization that without systemic global responses to even the global institutional playing-field, disparate national and local level attempts at economic development and equity will never be enough.
A similar systemic geo-political response is urgently needed to the very problematic form and structure of the global Internet today. Whoever controls the basis and means of global connectedness, which provide the new dynamic logic of social organising, and of development of social institutions, obviously has unfathomable systemic power. Such unilateral power is further accentuated through control over the new structures and storehouses of global social intelligence. The point being stressed here is that the global Internet today is of no less systemic geo-economic and -political importance than the global financial system. Further, it is even more unipolar than the global financial system, so much so that the EU partners of the US stick to the status quo largely in a simple bewilderment about possible alternatives, and the attendant fear of the unknown, even as they grudge the US-centricity of the Internet from the bottom of their heart. In the circumstances, BRICS is the only geo-political block that can present the urgent political responsive that is required today with regard to the global Internet.
The BRICS countries should, first of all, set up a formal institution to deal with this key global systemic issue, in order to share their knowledge and experience in this area, collectively think about and understand the very important but often complex and subtle phenomenon of Internet-induced social changes, and bring to bear on the global stage their collective political and economic strength. This is required to force the hand of the US and its allies who have consistently blocked any attempt at legitimately and democratically developing global norms, principles and, as required, law for the global Internet, which would help the global Internet to be employed equitably for the common good of all, in all regions and countries of the world. The plus ten review process of the World Summit on the Information Society, to be conducted later this year, is going to be an important venue in this regard.
Such a new formal BRICS institution dealing with Internet issues should have sufficient global political profile and not be just another of the numerous cooperation platforms that get set up plurilaterally, including among the BRICS countries. It should be an act of highest political foresight and boldness, similar to the initiatives taken during the last BRICS summit for addressing the imbalances of the global financial system. It is proposed that that the BRICS summit to be held later this year in Ufa, Russia, announces the formation of a high-profile 'BRICS Committee on Digital Economy Policy'. While Internet and its governance do span a full range of social issues, it may be easier at this stage for BRICS countries to immediately begin working together on the economic aspects of the global Internet. However, the remit of this Committee, like that of a similarly named OECD Committee, must be rather expansive. It should deal with a broad range of key current and emergent Internet policy issues. It is also possible to look at forming a 'BRICS Forum on Digital Economy Policies', which includes participation of BRICS civil society groups and think tanks, and of its national and international businesses. If this institutional form is preferred, then an inter-governmental 'Committee on Digital Economy Policies' can be placed at the centre of such a Forum as its policy making body. In addition, it will also be appropriate to build a network of BRICS research centres in BRICS countries. Separately, a new high profile 'BRICS Center on Digital Economy' should also be set up.
While such enabling institutional bodies are the urgently required response to the growing unsustainability of an extremely unipolar global Internet, which is becoming a key means for exercising global economic, political and socio-cultural domination, a time can soon come when stronger steps may need to be taken by the BRICS countries, including perhaps some kind of BRICS Economic Zone on the Internet. It is best if we begin anticipating in full earnest what is going to be a highly Internet-centric future of our societies.
(1) Draft proposal presented by Parminder Jeet Singh, IT for Change, India, at the Russia IGF panel on BRICS, April, 2015
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